2007 All-Southern team: Can't Miss Kid

DUNCAN, S.C. -- On the best afternoons, always Saturdays and only when the football schedule fell right, little Willy Korn would end up at Clemson Memorial Stadium.

He'd start in the upper deck's top row, the highest point in the place they call Death Valley, and imagine himself as one of the Tigers players down below. Then he'd head down to the grass and rehearse those dreams.

For a few minutes after home games, Clemson grants young fans access to the field. And Korn, a pre-teen during those late 1990s seasons, would lead the pack, grab a ball and pretend he was a superstar."I remember thinking that it was the greatest thing in the world," Korn said. "I loved going to those games, watching, then getting to play there. Great memories."

In two weeks, the pretending ends. After a stellar senior season at Byrnes High that made him the 2006 Orlando Sentinel All-Southern Player of the Year, Korn -- a 6-foot-2, 200-pounder considered one of the nation's top five quarterbacks -- will enroll early at Clemson.

Hold the superstar talk for now. But Korn's throwing skills and athleticism, combined with no returning starting quarterback, mean his next trip to Death Valley could be with the first string.

"He wouldn't start at a lot of schools," rivals.com recruiting analyst J.C. Shurburtt said. "But with their depth chart and with his talent, it's kind of looking like the perfect storm."

The past two months may rank as Korn's roughest in high school: a second-round playoff loss to rival Gaffney ended Byrnes' run of four consecutive state titles and he posted a 5-for-15, three-turnover performance at last week's Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas in Spartanburg, S.C. Korn will play in one more all-star game, the U.S. Army All-American Bowl Jan. 6 in San Antonio.

Korn leaves Byrnes as its most successful quarterback. He led the Rebels to an unbeaten season in 2005, and lost three games, all to rival Gaffney, in three seasons as the starter.

"To be honest," Byrnes booster club president Tony McAbee said, "from our area, I'm not sure we've had another quarterback of his kind."

Five tiny towns feed into the school district anchored by Byrnes, and Rebels football both links and dominates them all. In an area with a median household income of about $30,000, the football program will sell more than $100,000 in merchandise in 2006. Twelve corporate sponsors sign three-year contracts that promise $10,000 donations. Local businesses and boosters funded the purchase of a Jumbotron for Byrnes' home field, and a $2.5 million field house should be completed in the next 12 months.

For the past three years, though, the on-field leader of this gridiron empire comes from much more humble roots. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Korn lived in six towns in three states. He endured his parents' divorce, then moved to Duncan with his father, who has custody of his three sons.

"It hasn't always been easy on Willy and his brothers," said Willy's father, Lary Korn. "Sometimes, I wish things had been more normal for them."

Sports, though, has held a constant throughout his life. Lary played college baseball at Kentucky and Otterbein and served as a volunteer baseball assistant at the College of Charleston. Lary, a physician, built his work schedule around his oldest son's games and coached youth sports through much of Willy's childhood.

Soon, football began to take up most of Willy's time. He size made him an offensive lineman during his early Pop Warner days, but by the time middle school rolled around, Korn had blossomed into a quarterback.

Enter Bobby Bentley, a Byrnes alumnus and the school's coach. He started schooling Korn as an eighth grader, and by the start of Korn's sophomore year, Bentley had made him first string.

Bentley's shotgun-happy spread offense seems a perfect fit for Korn, who has proved durable enough to run the ball and precise enough to make the needed throws. The second game of his sophomore season was a 50-20 victory over Greer High.

"After that game," Lary Korn said, "Coach Bentley came up to me and said, `He's got a chance to be the best one who's ever played here.'"

The Rebels finished that season with a state title, and that prompted some top college programs to discover Korn. Yet with each letter received or call filtered through Bentley to him, Korn kept thinking about those Saturday afternoons at Death Valley.

Four weeks before his junior season began, Korn gave Clemson an oral commitment. He has held firm since, save a short stretch in September 2005 when the Tigers flirted with Tim Tebow, who eventually signed with Florida.

Next came an undefeated season and a state title in 2005, Byrnes' seventh since the school opened in the mid-1950s. Fans approach Korn for autographs, kids wear his jerseys. At a middle-school basketball game earlier this month, Korn seemed surprised that he sat undisturbed the entire second half.

All the while, Byrnes Principal Jeff Rogers said, Korn kept his poise as his area's newest celebrity. "I've got a 4-year-old who wants to be Willy," Rogers said. "He's gotten so much attention for everything he does, but he's handled all of it so well."

Folks around Clemson bank on saying the same sort of things in a few years. They see offensive coordinator Rob Spence's scheme as a perfect fit for the dual-threat quarterback and Korn as a player who can push the Tigers from a middle-of-the-pack team in the Atlantic Coast Conference to national contender.

All this for a guy who hasn't yet rubbed Howard's Rock, a guy whose closest physical connection to Clemson is a Tommy Bowden-autographed helmet on his bedroom bureau.

He knows, though, that soon he'll be back on the field at Death Valley. This time, though, he won't need to pretend a thing.

`To be honest, from our area, I'm not sure we've had another quarterback of his kind.'

Illustration: PHOTO: Lary Korn (left), a physician, has been a big part of Willy's life, coaching him in youth leagues and building his work schedule around his son's games. Now, Willy is one of the nation's top players.PHOTOS BY EMILY HOROS/SPECIAL TO THE SENTINEL.

The 88th All-Southern football team, selected by the Sentinel's panel of experts, is a compilation of the best players in 12 Southern states. QB Willy Korn, of Duncan (S.C.) Byrnes, is the Player of the Year. Production, not potential, is the key to being selected. Players are recognized for their play on the field; thus, is not necessarily a "top prospects" list.